Find Me An Angel
by robin baby
Summary: In which someone in heaven thinks the Winchesters could still use a guardian angel, Dean doesn't care all that much for the new guy, and things eventually turn out to be … not quite what they seemed. There's Cas in here, if you're patient! No slash.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **I have little to say about this one, except a huge thank you to my wonderful beta Sternenlicht, for constructive comments and thesaurus ;)

This concoction will be served to you in three courses!

**Disclaimer:** Recognizable characters belong to Kripke and the CW, unrecognizable ones might be mine.

I hope you'll enjoy! Let me know what you think!

ooo

_Find Me An Angel_

With Bobby gone, all the usual things, all the coping mechanisms suddenly don't seem to work anymore. Dean begins to wonder if he'll crack soon. And what will be the final straw. There were times before when he felt like he was already in pieces just underneath the skin, and all it'd take would be a little nib. Those times when Sam was gone, dead or in hell (he thought).

Now he feels like that again, it's just also worse. Revenge isn't as healthy a fuel as desperation or promises to keep, it seems.

So it's been harder, lately, to just stay focused, to not let things slip his attention. He doesn't know why. Suddenly he can feel the insomnia, it sits on his eyeballs and his shoulders like something fuzzy that weighs a ton. And while he rarely gets staggering, babbling-nonsense drunk, his body starts to protest the diet of alcohol and not enough meals, even the fast food kind.

And then, finally, there's a moment, somewhere in a big, abandoned and gloomy farmhouse in Idaho, hunting a vampire, where he's just a heartbeat too slow, or turns left instead of right, or whatever. A _mistake_, something that wouldn't have happened half a year ago.

There's pain. The murky half-light goes a shade darker still, and then everything turns pitch black.

ooo

He feels a pull so strong he thinks his bones might shatter. A violent yank, and then cold and damp and the buzz of the distant interstate again.

Dean blinks, trying to dispel the fuzziness that clouds everything. There's a face hovering in front of his own, a man's, and Dean thinks it looks perfectly livid. But then his vision clears and he's focusing on neutral features and expressionless, patient eyes.

The face disappears.

Somehow, Dean manages to prop himself up on an elbow, his hands automatically patting down his torso, checking for injuries. Below his ribs, the fabric of his shirt is wet and warm. He can smell the blood then, and taste it, metallic and absurdly familiar on his tongue.

'What the hell?' he tries to say, but it comes out like a garbled radio transmission, rough and in fragments. His throat feels parched.

As he struggles into a more or less upright sitting position, he realizes that his shirt is ripped, all the way from his lower back to his abdomen. But that's the only damage, as it seems. Beneath the soaked fabric, his skin is intact. Smeared with blood, but without a scratch.

Finally, Dean remembers he isn't alone and looks up. The other man has moved away and is watching him, leaning against a dusty table someone pushed against the wall and abandoned along with the rest of the house.

A few feet away from him, the vampire lies in a crumpled heap on the floor, unmoving.

Dean stares at it, trying to figure out what on earth is happening.

'Where's Sam?' he asks, reflexively, and is pleased to find that his voice seems to have patched itself up some.

'Downstairs, still looking for the creature. He's safe.'

The man is about Dean's age, but a little shorter and slighter. Light brown hair and dark brown eyes in a face you might encounter anywhere. He's wearing faded denims and a tee that might be black or dark grey or dark blue, beneath a cargo jacket.

The way he's standing there, he looks like he's used to lounging around next to dead monsters.

Slowly, Dean starts getting to his feet, hoping that the movement and the shadows will hide his right hand reaching for his knife.

No such luck.

The other man's eyes follow his motions with unsettling precision, and the corners of his mouth turn up a little, as if he saw this coming from a mile away. 'That's not necessary. And it wouldn't be very effective, either.'

Dean's head is still swimming, and there's an unpleasant sensation somewhere deep in his mind, like a void pressing in from the back of his head and trying to reach into every part of him.

'You're a leviathan,' he states. It's the only thing that makes sense to him right now, and he thinks that if the leviathan attacks, he's done for.

_Where's Sam?_

'No, Dean, I'm not. I'm an angel.'

Dean's first thought is that it's a bad joke, pretty bad even for a monster. But then he looks at the dead vampire again that's lying between them now like the arrow on a strung bow. There's no blood on the dusty, dirty floorboards but Dean's own, no traces of a fight. Only a few smudges of soot where the vampire's head is touching the floor, and burnt-out holes where its eyes and mouth used to be.

The man isn't lying. The realization goes through Dean like a cold snap, and is just as sobering.

_This isn't good_. He was done with angels. Meeting another one is the last thing he needs.

Buying time, he slowly goes and picks up his gun where it must have landed when the vampire knocked him down. Wiping dust and dirt off the smooth metal, he straightens up again, but doesn't turn.

'What do you want?'

'What makes you think I want something?'

Dean snorts. He turns around and fixes the angel with a cold stare. 'Was I dead?'

The angel returns his gaze curiously, surprised by the _non sequitur_, but eventually he shrugs. 'Hard to say when it's that close, but I don't think so.' He pauses, then adds, 'You should be more careful, though.'

Dean almost sneers. _Keep your advice to yourself_, he thinks. 'So you saved me, yeah? In my experience, you guys don't just go around saving people's lives. You always want something.' He shoves the gun into his pants' waistband and shakes his head. 'Whatever it is, you can stick it where the sun shines, alright? I've got enough on my plate without your shit on top.'

There are a few moments of silence. The angel drops his gaze, but otherwise seems infuriatingly unperturbed.

'I don't want anything from you. I'm your guardian. The whole point of us is to go about saying people's lives and not want anything in return.'

'My guardian,' Dean repeats, suddenly feeling sick. He wonders if it's from blood loss, and is quite certain that it isn't.

'And your brother's,' the angel is replying. 'Everyone has one. You need one.'

_We had one._

'That so, huh?' Dean's voice is dripping acid now, but he hardly cares. He doesn't give a damn about what this angel thinks he has to do or what the point of anything is. This is beyond ridiculous, it's beyond presumptuous.

'Then what were you doing a couple of weeks ago, huh? Were you around? Yeah? Then what the fuck were you doing when our friend, the guy who's like a father to us, took a bullet to the head and died in a fucking hospital? Were you taking a fucking leak or what?'

The look of discomfort that Dean catches on the angel's face is satisfying, but it at the same time it makes him even more angry. He's met enough of these creatures to have a pretty good idea what it's supposed to mean.

'Bobby Singer isn't my charge. I can't –'

'Oh shut the fuck up! Don't give me that crap,' Dean all but yells. 'I don't need a babysitter, alright? I don't need a guardian angel. What I need is my friend, alive. Now you can either fix that, or you can stay the hell away from me.'

'I can't,' the angel says. 'Either.'

Dean just laughs, bitterly. If the angel thinks he's already got him figured out, well, he can play that game too. 'Yeah, sure.' _Can't, won't._

He shakes his head. He's never been so sick of angels.

Downstairs, floorboards creak, or a door. Sam, finally.

'Who says you're anyone's guardian, anyway?'

'My superiors, of course.'

Of course. 'And who the hell would that be, at this point?'

The angel hesitates briefly, then answers, 'No one who … wants to blow up your world.'

Now Dean does snort. What kind of answer is that?

It really doesn't matter, though, he's done with heaven. But then a thought crosses his mind. __

_Well if you can use us_, he thinks, _I can use you too._

'What about the leviathans? Can you kill them?'

There's a pause before the angel admits, 'I don't know. I'd … give it a shot if I met one. But until I get that chance, I can't say. They're older than us. They're powerful.'

'Well then go ahead and do some field work. If you find out you're any good against them at all, we can talk.'

With that, he turns on his heel and heads out the door, to finally find Sammy.

ooo

Sam sighs, so wistfully it almost makes Dean smile. They're both perched on some stolen car's hood, neither of them even bothered to check what make it is. It'll carry them a couple of miles or a couple hundred, that's all. Sam really wishes it were a newer model, though, something with comfortable reclining seats and leak-proof windows, because they'll be sleeping in the thing tonight.

'Man, I never thought I'd say this, but I miss the crappy motel rooms.'

'Come on, don't tell me you're complaining,' Dean replies, watching the sky, an expanse of forbidding clouds with only a few patches where stars come through. 'This is like the good old days. When we just used to, you know. Hunt a wendigo this week and, say, a djinn the next. No crazy-ass sea urchins from hell.'

Sam snorts, amused by the image in spite of the fact that nothing about this is funny.

'Yeah,' he says. 'God.' Something about his voice makes Dean suddenly feel the chill of the night more acutely. Maybe because nostalgia has such a very bitter taste these days.

They're both silent for a while, and in the odd sense of sobriety that followed Sam's quiet words, Dean decides that he'll have to tell his little brother about that angel after all. It's been a couple of days already and he's been doing his best to file it away with all the other crap and weird stuff they come across every day, because that's what he wants it to be. But he knows it doesn't work like that, so he begins to talk.

At first, Sam seems a little upset about the whole thing, but not for the reason Dean expected.

'Why are you only telling me this now? Don't you think that's kinda huge?'

Dean makes a point of not meeting his brother's eye and just keeps staring upwards. 'Is it?'

'Well … yeah! It's gotta mean something.'

_No, it doesn't. It's not a big deal._ 'Don't know,' he says. 'Don't care.'

'What's his name?'

Dean frowns at the clouds, caught off guard, oddly vexed by the question. He doesn't know the angel's name. He didn't ask, and he isn't planning to.

ooo

Time begins to feel like nothing at all. Days turn to weeks and Dean is reminded of those scenes in movies where everything wheels and changes and spins around one fixed point that never moves at all, and he feels like that point.

It's February and then March and he breaks time up into highway miles and research and periods of inertia where he does his best not to think about anything.

Their cases don't really touch him, it's only hunting Dick Roman that shakes some life back into him, every lead like a jolt of energy. But if it was difficult to find the leviathan boss in the beginning, it only gets harder as the weeks go by.

In April, they corner one of Dick's gophers, but figure out that he isn't as alone as they thought a bit too late. Dean watches the leviathans' nondescript human faces turn into nothing but jaws and razor-teeth and hissing tongue, and then all of a sudden he's looking at dark, unfinished wood and smells resin.

He whirls around, and there's the angel, standing some feet away from him and Sam.

'What the fuck was that?' he explodes. 'We had them!'

'No, they had you.'

It's the truth but Dean isn't prepared to admit that. He knows he isn't furious about having been snatched out of the leviathans' jaws at the last second. He's not that far gone yet. But he's furious that … he doesn't know. That it was the angel that saved them. Him, but most of all Sammy. That they'd be dead, him, but most of all Sam.

That the angel showed up at all, and that they needed him. He's furious they needed him.

'Thanks.' That's Sammy, being much more gracious about it all, somehow. 'For getting us out of there … It's good to meet you.' He doesn't offer the angel his hand like he did with Cas.

The angel says nothing, and after a moment, Sam asks, 'What's your name?'

Dean turns his back on the answer.

It's Amatiel.

ooo

Dean looks pale and drawn, and some of his movements, the little, unconscious ones, are like he's underwater. His eyes are red-rimmed from tiredness and cheap whiskey and his jacket looks like he bought it a size too big. Except he didn't.

Sam looks worried and sad. Sad about the loss of Bobby Singer and worried about Dean. And he's battling demons somewhere deep inside, out of anyone else's sight, all by himself. He's easier to read than the older brother. His eyes speak volumes and he makes no attempts at hiding what he feels.

The angel doesn't go too close to them when his presence isn't required, but his job is to watch so sometimes he watches. Especially when they're asleep because that's the only time he can help them a little in their day-to-day lives. Since Sam doesn't sleep much and Dean barely sleeps at all, that's not a lot of help.

And sometimes they seem braced against him even in their sleep.

He wonders how long they'll be able to keep going like that. And he thinks of Dean's request, the one he made in the abandoned house in Idaho. If he does that, the angel thinks, it'll cost him.

But he also already knows he'll do it. At least he'll try. After all, that kind of thing is what he's there for.

ooo

It's just before five in the morning when Dean's phone rings.

The motel room is dark, all black shadows and patches of dirty grey where the light of a porch lamp filters through the thin curtains. It isn't strong enough to reach the ceiling, let alone throw shapes or patterns there, but Dean has been staring straight up anyway, for the past half an hour, or the past two, he couldn't be sure.

Now he covers his eyes with one hand and tries to rub the sleeplessness and the long staring away.

The phone rings again.

He has no idea who it might be, and he doesn't really want to know. He's tired of talking to other hunters, telling them no, he and Sam can't take the case or help out, they're busy and it's nobody's business what they're working on. And much more than that, he's tired of telling other hunters that no, Bobby isn't there. And that he won't be back later.

_Stop_, he thinks.

On the third ring, Sam grunts in the other bed.

'Answer it already,' he mumbles, or Dean supposes that's what his little brother is saying into his pillow with a heavy tongue.

Dean closes his eyes, and takes a breath, and finally rolls over to pick up.

'Yeah,' he says, his own voice sounding parched, like it got dusty in the hours he hasn't been talking, just lying there and pretending to be asleep for Sam's sake.

'Where the bloody hell are you?'

In an instant, Dean is sitting bolt upright in bed, feeling like his heart jumped to his throat. Sam lifts his head, peering through a fringe of tousled hair with a frown.

'Bobby?'

Dimly, Dean hears the sound of the alarm clock hitting the floor as Sam fumbles for the switch on the bedside lamp, but his whole awareness is trimmed on the voice at the other end of the line.

'No, it's Santa Claus,' the voice is saying, sounding every bit like a not actually annoyed Bobby. 'Of course it's me. Now are you gonna tell me where you are?'

'Batesville, Arkansas,' Dean says automatically.

'Doing what?'

'Rugaru. _Bobby?_'

This time, something in his voice must tell Bobby that not everything's right, because his usual gruff manner softens a bit. 'Yeah, kid, it's me. What's going on?'

'I …' Dean falters. His mind is screaming at him to stop _feeling_ this because that can't be Bobby, it's a leviathan or a demon if they're lucky, but it could never be Bobby. Out of nowhere, his eyes are burning again and he feels like he's running low on oxygen. This is too much. He doesn't know what's happening, he only knows that if that isn't Bobby he's talking to (and it isn't), he'll go mad.

'Dean?'

'Yeah.' Dean clears his throat and struggles to get a grip on himself. 'It's just that … where are you, Bobby?'

'Rufus's cabin. It's freezing and dusty in here. I just woke up on the floor with the mother of all headaches and I ain't really sure how I got here.'

'You were dead,' Dean says thickly.

'I was what?' Bobby asks, but on the last syllable Dean can already hear him remembering.

'Oh. Huh.' That's what they say to things like that these days.

It takes all of three seconds, then –

'What did you do?'

'Nothing, Bobby, we … I swear we didn't do anything. Bobby –'

'Fine, it's alright, I'm here, kid. Think I might even still have my soul.' A pause. 'Except, of course, you gotta assume I'm lying.'

'Yeah,' is all Dean can think of saying. He's got to assume it. Because if he doesn't, and lets himself believe this, he might not come out the other side. That's aside from the fact that assuming anything else would be dumb.

Trouble is, he's already believing it, because he wants to so very badly.

Maybe this is the final straw he was wondering about a while ago. Maybe this is him finally losing it.

There's a long silence at the other end, then Bobby's voice asks, 'How's that case going?'

'The … um, yeah, it's alright. We're basically done.'

'Good. Then come back here, alright? Let's meet up. You can test some window wipes on me.'

They do. After a few hours, even Dean allows himself to believe it's really Bobby. He can't remember the last time he was this relieved, and this giddy.

For quite a while, he doesn't obsess as much over Dick Roman, and he doesn't drink much more than he used to before the world came apart all around him without even an apocalypse to help it along.

_TBC_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:**Part two!

Thanks a lot to those who left me comments for part one! Greatly appreciated! I hope you'll keep enjoying!

ooo

Somehow, it's always when Dean has nearly forgotten all about him again, that the angel flutters back into their lives.

This time, they're in an old, empty house a couple of miles outside of Redmond, Oregon. They're in the middle of a hunt, and knees deep in research that seems to lead nowhere.

It's been close on five months since they last saw the angel.

He appears close to the door, as if he's prepared to dive right out if they throw something at him. Not that it'd hurt him unless it was an angel blade, and Dean hasn't told the others he keeps one close all the time now. Sometimes he wonders if he's getting paranoid.

Bobby jumps a bit as the unexpected visitor materializes, and for an instant looks ready to reach for the nearest weapon himself, but the boys' faces – Dean's scowl and Sam's neutral look of recognition – tell him that this must be their new little helper. He relaxes some, and then studies the angel, curious, and once the shot of adrenalin subsides and his mind catches up in full, almost a bit nervous.

'You're on the right track,' the angel says, nodding at Sam's laptop and the papers and books they've spread out on the floor in the middle of the room. He's not one for pleasantries and small talk, it seems. 'But you're missing something. I could help?'

'I thought you're supposed to be a guardian angel, not a hunter,' Dean remarks, a bit more condescendingly than strictly necessary. Sam shoots him a look, but he ignores it. If this angel pulls them out of too-tight spots, well, he won't complain after all. But this, this is going too far. This is something Cas would have done.

'I am,' the angel replies. 'But I also –' He hesitates, suddenly looking a bit guilty, in a strangely tired way. 'I'm also a servant of heaven, and the more time you spend on this case, the longer it takes until you get back on the leviathans' track.' He looks at Dean, one hand raised in a pacifying gesture. 'No one's asking for anything, alright? You're hunting them anyway, aren't you?'

Dean stares at him for a few moments, jaw working as though he's trying to chew up the curse that's trying to escape him, then he just turns away, shaking his head.

'Why aren't the angels doing anything, if you want them gone?' Sam asks.

'We don't know anything about them. They were locked away in purgatory before even we were created, so reliable information is hard to come by.'

'So you leave us to do your dirty work?' Dean retorts. 'See how it goes and if they chew us up, maybe you'll think of something yourselves?'

'Dean.'

Dean doesn't understand how this isn't making his brother angry. He feels like it's the apocalypse all over again. Same script, just a slightly different cast.

'What are we missing?' Sam asks quickly, changing the subject before his brother can say anything more. And, he admits, maybe also to spare the angel more of this subject. It goes deeper and is more complicated than Amatiel probably knows, and, he looks uncomfortable enough as it is.

Dean listens from a few paces away as Bobby and Sam discuss their current case with the angel, unwilling to join in the conversation. It only takes a couple of minutes for the puzzle to come together, and the angel makes to leave again.

'Hey … Amatiel?'

The angel stops and turns to look at Bobby, waiting for him to continue.

'Was that you? You know – who bailed me out?'

For some moments, the angel seems unsure how to react to that question. Then, he simply nods.

'You told Dean you couldn't do it,' Sam puts in, just as Dean says, 'And you didn't think we might want to know that?'

The angel glances at Dean, eyes just the slightest bit narrowed. 'I said I couldn't do it because I _am_ just a guardian angel. We don't really have that kind of power, and we're not supposed to interfere like that. It's not allowed. It can … upset things.'

'But you did it anyway,' Sam concludes.

The angel smiles crookedly. 'Well … I guess I'm still feeling a bit rebellious from time to time.'

ooo

After this, inevitably, the moment arrives when one of them, Sam or Bobby, decides that they should call the angel, ask for help with one thing or another.

'No,' Dean says determinedly. 'We're not calling him.' He gets up from his chair abruptly and walks to one of the tiny, grimy windows of Rufus's cabin.

There's a brief silence that practically sounds like looks exchanged behind his back, then Sam asks, 'Why are you so against this, Dean?'

He says it like they've all discussed the matter a dozen times already. They haven't spoken about it once, but Dean supposes that between themselves, Sam and Bobby have, and supplied Dean's standpoint in the debate all on their own. He chooses not to wonder what arguments they will have used.

'Because they want something, they always do, and I'm done with all that crap. I'm sure as hell not asking for favours and ending up owing them something.'

'Well, if you're going down that road, then we already owe this particular one a lot, wouldn't you say?' Bobby points out. 'I know I do.'

And Dean really can't argue with that, of course. But still.

'I just don't get how you can be trusting him so easily.'

Now Sam and Bobby do exchange a look that clearly says they've been waiting for this conversation to happen. _What's the use of being the silent one if everyone guesses everything anyway_, Dean thinks petulantly.

'We're not trusting him, Dean,' Sam says calmly. 'Do you really think we're that stupid? It's just …' He shrugs and gestures at the mountain of books and loose sheets of paper that covers the small table like a recently erupted volcano. 'He can help. And … I don't know, his story rings true.'

'What story? The one about how _someone_ is in charge in heaven and they're just handing out new guardian angels with nothing but our best interests at heart?'

Sam smiles his infuriating _Have your tantrum, then I'll explain things to you_ smile. 'Yeah,' he says, 'that one, just the long version.'

Dean is silent. He wonders how often Sam has already talked with the angel without him knowing.

'He says heaven is a lot as it used to be. Apparently, a few archangels are running the place –'

'Archangels? Which of those that aren't locked up in hell or dead?'

'There's not just four archangels, Dean,' Bobby puts in. 'In most religions that believe in angels, there are at least seven, right up to several thousands of them. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Lucifer are just most frequently named and iconic enough to be widely known, I guess.'

'And where have they been all the time? When there was a war in their hometown, for example?'

Sam shrugs. 'Amatiel says it's difficult to explain because it's got nothing to do with … the world as we know it. He says they just weren't there. I don't know, I think he meant a different dimension or something like that.'

'Right. He gives you some cryptic explanation of the beyond-human-ken variety and you just buy it?'

Sam sighs and runs a hand through his hair. No one expected this whole angel-thing to be a simple matter. Least of all him.

'I just don't get it, Sam,' Dean goes on. 'I mean, how do we know those other archangels aren't as trigger-happy as Raphael was? How do we know this isn't the same as with Cas in the beginning? He was supposed to get us to _play our roles_, how do we know this one isn't the same? Seriously, after all that's happened you're happy to just believe a couple of archangels want to protect us along with the rest of humanity?'

Sam is silent for a while, and Bobby doesn't say anything either. Eventually, Sam admits, 'Yeah, maybe I really want it to be like that. Look, Dean … we derailed the apocalypse, I went to hell to kill the devil and came back without a soul and then it _was_ about to start all over again. And we somehow ended up fighting our closest friend and lost him and now I'm seeing things and you're probably seeing double all the time while we're facing an enemy we have no idea whatsoever how to beat and I just … I know I might be a fool for it, okay? But an angel is a powerful creature, and the way things are now, I'm damn glad to have one helping us again, even if I can't be sure about his motives.'

For a few moments, all three of them are quiet. Then Bobby gets up, taking a few steps closer to Dean, and asks: 'Is this hard for you because you don't wanna trust a stranger, and an angel at that, or because it isn't Cas?'

Dean half-heartedly shakes his head. 'It's got nothing to do with Cas.'

'Alright. Look, your brother and I, we ain't stupid either, okay? So until we've got real cause for concern, we'll keep picking his brain, 'cause it sure as hell is helpful.'

Dean doesn't move for a while, then he says, 'Okay, fine, do it. Go ahead and call him. I'm getting some air.'

Grabbing his jacket off the back of a chair, he heads for the door. He's not sulking. He just doesn't want this. And the truth is that Bobby isn't all that wrong.

That angel slipped smoothly into the space where Cas used to be, not because they're alike or because there's any chance in hell Dean will let them all become friends, but simply because of what he is.

An angel watching over them. And if Dean had learned to stop his thoughts from turning to Cas whenever they felt they needed more help than Bobby's books and Sam's research could provide, that safety catch seems gone now. There's someone there again where, after Cas's death, for quite a while there was nothing.

That doesn't make things easier at all.

ooo

'Are you doing that for exercise, or …'

Dean brings the axe down on another log of wood and then rests it on the chopping block, handle pointing skywards.

'No, I just don't think we'll have the time to put central heating in that thing before winter.' He nods towards the cabin. 'Assuming it's still standing then.'

'Fair point.'

Dean starts picking up chopped wood, piling it rather haphazardly next to the uncut logs. He found a stash of them at the cabin's back a couple of days ago, and wanting some fresh air and guessing Rufus wouldn't begrudge them his old wood anymore, decided to make use of the free afternoon.

The last piece of fir on the pile for now, he takes off his gloves and accepts a bottle of beer from his brother with a nod.

They drink in silence for a few moments, Sam looking out into the forest and Dean studying him. He looks a little pale, Dean thinks, a little tired.

'How're you doin', Sammy?'

Sam smiles. By now he knows that there's two ways in which Dean asks that question. This is the _other_ one.

'You mean how are things with me and Lucifer?'

'Yeah.'

Sam looks down, apparently quite intrigued by the bottle in his hand.

'Good,' he says eventually. 'I'm fine.'

Dean just barely suppresses a sigh. 'You think I'm buying that?' he asks. 'Have you ever considered acting classes?'

Sam snorts, but doesn't look up. He runs a hand through his hair. 'I … actually I wanted to talk to you about that.'

'Acting classes?'

'Shut up,' Sam mutters, rolling his eyes. Then he sobers a little. 'About my hallucinations. Amatiel –' He breaks off, chewing his bottom lip.

'What about him?' Dean's voice is instantly a little more guarded.

'He says he can –'

'What, fix it?'

'No, not fix it. He says just because an angel tore the wall down doesn't mean an angel can rebuild it. It's … apparently it's too complex. Death made it, after all. But …' He fidgets a bit, as if he isn't quite sure to explain it properly 'It's like a room full of paintings, okay? And you cover them up. I'd still know they're there, I'd remember everything, but I couldn't … they couldn't draw me in anymore. I wouldn't get them mixed up with reality.' He lifts the hand that still bears a white scar and smiles crookedly. 'Wouldn't even need to run around digging my thumb into my palm all the time.'

Dean is turning his bottle around in his hand, feeling how it's always on the brink of slipping from his grip, moist with condensation as it is.

'So you went to him about it?'

Sam half shakes his head, half shrugs. 'No, not really. He knew something was wrong. Maybe it's an angel thing. I guess I just gave him the details.' He pauses. 'Look, I know you said you didn't want to owe him anything.'

'Yeah, well,' Dean sighs. 'Bobby was right, anyway. We owe this one already and if he can help you – hell, I'm all for it.'

Sam slowly nods his thanks at this, and for a while they're both quiet.

'This isn't about me, Sammy. If you trust him to … do stuff in your head …' Dean shrugs, and Sam smiles.

'Yeah,' he says. 'I do, actually.'

Dean nods and gets up again to put another log on the block, but leaves the axe where it is for the moment.

'You talk to him a lot, huh?'

'And you never do.'

Dean picks up Rufus's work-gloves, dirty and stiff with old labour, and sits on the block, arms propped on his thighs. 'Look, Sammy, for what it's worth I guess he's alright. And I get why you and Bobby want to keep him close at hand. I get it and you're probably right. I just –' He stops, shaking his head.

Dean can't argue with Sam and Bobby's points. He doesn't even genuinely dislike the angel. He hasn't spent enough time with him for that. But he never wanted to cross another angel's path again. Told himself it was because they're nothing but trouble, all the different kinds and colours that trouble comes in.

When he's drunk enough, though – and, lately, that isn't too seldom – he'll admit that it really is because he wishes things had gone differently with Cas, that he could have or _had_ done something, _saved_ his friend, and somehow angels and Cas are still too inextricably connected in his head.

And he's really doing his best not to compare this one with Cas.

He does it all the time.

ooo

Dean sits outside Rufus's cabin with a bottle of beer in his hands. It's cold beneath a clear sky, but with a new moon and only the small, grimy windows of the cabin behind him, the forest is a wall of blackness just a few feet ahead of him.

Sam and Bobby are inside with the angel, poring over some books and trying to get to the bottom of one borderline academic question or other.

He hears the door open and thinks it's Sam about to tell him to get inside, but the footsteps aren't his brother's. They're the angel's, and they stop beside Dean, but a safe distance away.

Dean takes a sip of beer and stares ahead. 'Leaving?' he asks pointedly.

'Yes.'

'Since when do you walk? Should take you a while, all the way to heaven.'

'I'm not going to heaven,' the angel replies. His voice is quiet, appeasing. 'Bobby asked me to tell you that he and your brother would like you to come and help them. That's all.'

Dean narrows his eyes at the darkness. 'Alright.'

He hopes the angel will take that as the dismissal it is, but of course he doesn't. Instead, he moves to stand in front of Dean, watching him until Dean looks up out of sheer discomfort.

'Something's bothering you,' the angel states. 'Something about me.'

_Perceptive_, Dean thinks, but bites down on the remark before it escapes him.'I'm just not a big fan of you guys, alright?' he says instead.

The angels nods. 'Understandable, I guess.'

'Alright then,' Dean mutters and looks away, waiting for his unwanted companion to take the hint this time and take off. Then he sighs as he realizes he'll obviously have to be clearer about it. _Jesus_, he thinks. _He's just like Cas._

The angel lifts his hands in deference. 'I … get it,' he says. 'Good night, Dean.'

Dean chews on his bottom lip as the angel turns and starts walking away. _Dammit_, he thinks.

'Hold on.'

The angel stops and turns, looking at him curiously.

Dean scratches the metallic layer off the beer label for a few moments.

'So, new archangels, huh?'

'Yes. New archangels.'

'The last one in charge wanted to reboot the apocalypse.'

The angel nods slowly. 'These don't.'

'Really. Why not? And how do I know you're not lying?' Maybe there would have been a less cutting way to say this, but Dean won't let himself care.

He watches the angel out of the corner of his eye, just because his reaction might tell him something. And there _is_ something. It flashes in the angel's eyes, but it's too quickly gone because he looks down and then off into the darkness.

'I'm not lying,' the angel says, and then smiles. It looks strangely heavy for a near-stranger's smile. 'But I understand if you don't believe me.'

Dean smiles humourlessly. 'Yeah? Why's that?'

There's a brief silence, then the angel shrugs, a ripple in the darkness. 'I know how the end of our war … went down.'

All of a sudden, Dean feels horribly tired. The kind of tired that makes you forget what being awake and alert is even like. He pushes the bottle down into the loose soil between his feet and rests his head in his hands for just as long as he'll allow himself such a sign of dejection in front of the angel.

When he sits up straight again, the darkness looks like it's swimming.

'Sam and Bobby want me to work on it, I think.' He does think so. Despite what they're saying about just using the angel, they're still looking for something solid in their interactions with the angel, some undeniable proof that he's truly just there to help them, and they want Dean to make the same effort. Because, as Sam says, they're lost. 'You know, trusting you.'

'Don't.'

The word comes quick as a shot, and Dean looks up at the angel. Through the nine or ten or eleven feet that separate them, Dean is surprised how much pain he can recognize in the other's eyes. It confuses him. Nothing about this reaction makes sense to him, and he can't think of a reply.

Before he can do anything at all, the angel is gone.

_TBC_


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Here goes part 3! Apologies for the somewhat odd start to this one … the story was written as one piece (one chaotic piece, that is), and then edited bit by bit.

In case someone was wondering, the **Amatiel **is the angel of spring and, according to the angelic dictionary at , "[we] appeal to this renewing angel to plant the seeds of hope, rebirth, new beginnings and positive expectations in our hearts and minds."

And now I hope you'll enjoy the last part of this, and are even a little surprised, perhaps ;)

ooo

'He's a bit weird, too, isn't he?'

_Too?_ Like who? Like Cas?

'The way he talks, it sounds like the sort of language Tolkien and Neil Gaiman might've come up with if they'd had to work together.'

'What?'

Sam laughs. He's tired and just babbling away. 'Never mind.'

ooo

When Dean confronts the angel about their last conversation, about _Don't trust me_, the answer is,

'You can trust me.'

Dean frowns. 'Right. You're not making sense, dude.'

The angel shakes his head and tells him it doesn't matter whether Dean trusts him or not, he'll always be there to help regardless. Then he tells him that if 'someone upstairs' ever decided to try and use them again, any more than they are now if Dean chooses to see it that way, at the very least they'll know about it, and Dean gets angry at that because it means that this angel already seems to understand him better than he has any right to.

ooo

'Mind if I ask you something?'

Two a.m. is long gone and Casper, Wyoming, is slowly disappearing under a thick cover of snow. Erratic wind gusts against the window and is piling up a little rim of ice crystal, just like that fake snow spray people get for the holidays and make their windows look like they recently were in an accident with a round of camembert.

Jeez. _Cheese_. Dean's thoughts are going haywire, in a drowsy sort of way.

Must be the long day, and the bad light, and the fuzzy quiet in the motel room.

Sam, quite uncharacteristically, fell asleep in the middle of research about half an hour ago, head lolling back against the wall, computer slowly running out of battery in his lap. There must be some ad replaying perpetually on the website he has open, because a faint flicker of colours keeps ghosting over his face at intervals.

His little brother really must have been missing motel beds, Dean thinks, and can't really blame him.

He draws in a breath and squints. For these past then minutes, he's been staring at the file spread out on the table in front of him, re-reading the same sentence over and over and not taking in a single word. Thinking about fake snow and trying to make up his mind.

He's reluctant to talk to the angel about anything that goes beyond leviathans and cases, because … because he doesn't want to end up realizing that he likes this one, and because maybe he's already realizing that he does a little bit. Not when he has no desire to go anywhere near friendship.

Not within a hundred miles of it.

But there's also this question that's been ghosting around in the back of his mind ever since – well. _Since_.

So he finally says, _Mind if I ask you something?_

The angel looks up from the wood engraving he's been studying. 'Ask away.'

Dean hesitates for a moment. The strangest thing about all this is that Dean doesn't find it that uncomfortable at all. The dead-of-night quiet and being essentially alone with the angel.

He supposes that's not a good thing. Not in his book, anyway.

'What happens to you when you –' He breaks off, not sure why. The angel studies him patiently.

'When I what?'

'Angels,' Dean clarifies. 'I mean angels in general. What happens to you when you die?'

The angel's brow furrows slightly. Odd question, so out of the blue. He shrugs. 'We die.'

'Yeah, but – human souls go to heaven or hell, monster souls go to purgatory, right? What about angels?'

Dean doesn't know if that question really takes some thinking, but he guesses it does. Having seen heaven and hell and talked to creatures from everywhere in between in the course of his not quite usual life, he forgets, occasionally, that your ordinary human wouldn't have a ready answer to _Where do we go when we die?_ It makes sense that your ordinary angel wouldn't know, either, he supposes. Oddly enough, he never bothered to ask Cas just _where_ he'd been, those times he'd died.

'I believe we cease to exist.'

Dean mulls that over for a while, trying to figure out if that makes things worse, or better.

'I guess that's not too bad, is it?' he says eventually, quietly. He shrugs, thinking of the heavens he's been. Like the real world, only slightly crazier, and slightly calmer. Full of the past. Whereas if you just _stop_ … 'You just get rid of everything.' No more remembering all the things that haunt. 'I guess it's peaceful.'

The angel studies Dean intently, curiously. Dean looks like he hopes it's peaceful. Hopes with everything he's got.

Softly, the angel says: 'I suppose.'

ooo

'I'm telling you, that one's driving me up the wall.'

'They do all seem to share a talent for being annoying as hell, don't they?' Bobby mutters, dipping a knife into a jar of Borax. 'Dean still down there?'

Sam blows out a frustrated huff and leans on the back of a chair, nodding. 'We're getting nowhere. Aside from being a real pain in the ass, this one's also tough as nails. I'm all out of ideas.'

Bobby grunts, watching the blade marinate. 'You know,' he says after a while, 'that time we were trying to get Crowley's whereabouts from that Starship in Grants Pass? Cas was awful effective with that one. I couldn't get a word out of the thing, but Cas had the address in all of five minutes.'

'You think we should call Amatiel?'

That's when Dean comes stomping in, looking just as irritated as Sam. 'God, that's one annoying son of a bitch,' he mutters, going straight for the ice box. They relocated their stash of beer, since they decided that Rufus's old fridge wasn't turning them cold enough. And anyway it's stuffed with stacks of papers by now, no room for anything perishable but a box of last night's leftover pizza.

'We were just thinking about getting our heavenly guardian to help,' Sam remarks.

'Yeah. Maybe we should,' Dean replies, taking a deep drink. 'Before I chop that bastard up with a chainsaw just to shut him up for a while.'

They do expect some reluctance, because presumably torture it's one of a guardian angel's usual jobs, but the degree of resistance they meet with does surprise them a bit.

'No,' the angel says at once, seeming pretty unsettled by their request. 'I'm sorry.'

'Why not?'

Their guardian just shakes his head. 'Believe me, it wouldn't be a good idea for me to go in there. In fact, it would be a horrible idea.'

'Why?' Dean asks. 'Because you don't know anything about the leviathans?'

'No, because –' He stops and looks at Dean, eyes almost pleading. Dean is a little taken aback by this, not really sure where the reaction is coming from. Not sure why it's directed at him. 'It wouldn't be a good idea for him to see me.'

'Look,' Sam cuts in, 'it's taken us forever to catch this one, we can't just go out and get another to see if we'll have better luck next time. We need to get him to talk and we can't figure out how. I'm sure you've got a trick or two up your sleeve that we don't.'

Sam is looking at Amatiel imploringly, but the angel keeps shaking his head, looking cornered. That's when it's obvious that they'll only have to push long enough.

'Come on,' Dean says. 'I thought it was your job to help us.'

'Actually, it's my job to protect you.'

'Great, then help us protect ourselves, alright?'

This time, the angel is quiet for a while, lips compressed to a thin line. Finally, he says, 'I'm telling you that this is a bad idea. Do you still want me to do it?'

'At least give it a shot. He's tied up good, he can't hurt you, if that's what you're worried about.' That earns Bobby a look of mild annoyance at best.

'Fine,' the angel says. He doesn't sound defiant or angry. The word is quiet and flat, like surrender.

For the next twenty minutes, Sam, Dean and Bobby sit around the cluttered table nursing ice cold beers and leafing through sources rather aimlessly. There are no sounds from the basement, and eventually, they all troop downstairs to see how the interrogation is going.

As they step into the musty, somewhat claustrophobic room they are greeted by the leviathan's laugh.

'Really, guys, this is better than pay tv,' the monster drawls. It's made itself at home in the rather stringy body of a middle-aged guy who bears enough of a resemblance to Alastair to make Dean slightly uncomfortable.

He studies them all in turn, then grins, practically leers at the angel, as if he finds something about all this devilishly funny. 'Look at that. Brand new. Someone on the third floor was very gracious.'

'Shut up,' Bobby tells him, and Dean risks a glance at the angel. 'Getting anywhere?'

The angel only shakes his head. His eyes are black in the dimness of the cave-like cellar, and trained on the leviathan like something's compelling him.

The leviathan watches them like he thinks they all make for a fascinating study. He keeps grinning like a lunatic.

'Isn't this _swell_?'

Dean frowns angrily, already warming to the idea of the chainsaw again. He still isn't sure why the hell the angel was so very reluctant to go down here, but he also has to admit that obviously nothing much is coming of it.

'Let's give it a rest for now,' Bobby suggest behind him. With a mildly disgusted glance at the monster, he adds, 'There's always tomorrow, eh?'

'Oh, definitely,' the leviathan replies, sounding disconcertingly gleeful.

ooo

It's instinct more than anything else that wakes Dean later that night. The cabin is silent as a grave, and even the stormy weather of the evening seems to have died down. It must be somewhere between two and three, which would put Sam in the small back room that has a bunk bed (which is really much too small for him), and Bobby downstairs, keeping an eye on their house guest.

Dean sits up on the couch and blearily looks about himself, trying to detect anything that might be off between the dark squares of furniture and the more irregular patches of shadow that pool in the corners and around objects.

And there _is_ something. Something that doesn't belong there. A dark shape, a figure leaning against the kitchen counter, watching him through the darkness. Moonlight throws everything into relief, and Dean recognizes the figure at once.

It's Castiel.

He's off the sofa in an instant, just fleetingly feeling the cold of the floorboards against his bare feet. _Light_, he thinks, more light would be a good idea, but his thoughts can't pull themselves together for anything more concrete than that.

'Hello, Dean.' Castiel's voice weaves into to the blues and greys of the night like it's made of them.

For a full minute, Dean just stares. There's Castiel, in his plain white shirt and cheap suit, the perpetually upturned tie. Just standing there, calmly, like this makes sense.

The wind sets in again, making the conifers around the cabin breathe.

'Cas,' Dean finally manages, mind still tripping over its own feet. 'You're alive?'

Castiel gives a faint shrug. 'It was just a few leviathans. Did you really think they could kill me?'

'I …' Dean starts, but breaks off. He shakes his head, not knowing to what.

'You don't look too well. You're drinking too much, aren't you?'

That strikes Dean as a rather incongruous thing to point out in a situation like this. So instead of answering, he says, 'What are you doing here?'

'Just checking in on an old friend.' He hesitates. 'That is … if we're still friends, of course.'

Dean doesn't know what to say. Are they still friends? How is he supposed to have an answer to that now? All these months trying to figure out how to deal with that new angel and somehow putting Cas to rest in his mind at the same time, and now he's suddenly talking to him.

He approaches Castiel slowly. Shadows lie on the angel's face like little patches of obscurity, and Dean wishes once again there were more light. He can't see Castiel's eyes properly.

A little jolt of sobriety goes through him quite suddenly, like someone dropped an ice cube down his shirt collar. Still, he has to make an effort to be cautious, to stay on his guard.

'How do I know this is really you?'

Castiel seems to consider that for a moment. 'It's me, Dean. But guess you don't know. Although I can assure you holy water and silver would speak in my favour.'

Dean wants to ask where he's been all this time and why the hell he's showing up only now, and tell him that he can't just _believe_ it's really him, not after leviathans and what not, for a whole boatload of reasons. But instead he says, 'I've got your coat.' It just springs to his mind, as if it's the most important thing right now.

Castiel smiles slowly. 'Thank you.'

Somehow, that's it. Dean has to know for sure he isn't dreaming or hallucinating this or whatever, so he reaches out and grabs Castiel's shoulder. It's solid, real, and warm, and then sharp pain rips through Dean's amazement and confusion, from his abdomen to his spine and into his head like a shard of ice. He gasps, mind scrambling to make sense of what's happening.

He hears laughter, and that's not Cas's voice anymore.

'That was ridiculously easy,' the leviathan says. 'The great Dean Winchester, fooled by a simple shapeshifting trick.'

He crouches, and it's only then that Dean realizes he's on his knees and elbows. The leviathan grabs him a fistful of his shirt and yanks him up until they're face to face, an inch apart.

'How spectacularly stupid, Dean. All it takes is _one_ touch, didn't you know that? We were _inside_ that angel for days, we _all_ can turn into him.'

He lets go and the room tilts around Dean. The floor crashes into him and his vision goes for a moment. When the darkness recedes to spots the leviathan is standing over him, smiling as if Dean's something he's about to crush.

'Isn't this fun? I thought it might be fun.'

He nods at the wound his knife left. 'That'll be quick,' he says, his words already becoming fuzzy in the strange rushing that is growing louder in Dean's ears. The skin on his face feels tight, his head like it's swathed in wool. His hands are too numb to register the warmth or slickness of blood, but some part of his mind is still alert enough to recognize that he must be losing pints. _Will be quick_, he thinks wildly. The leviathan's right.

The monster's lips move, speaking words Dean can't hear anymore, and then it's suddenly gone. Dean realizes his eyes have slipped shut only when he opens them again, struggling with the effort of the tiny movement, struggling to focus. There's light, somewhere, faintly. It fades quickly, and he allows his eyes to close again.

_This is like a dream_, he thinks vaguely. His mind is spinning with the monsters and blood and fire of his hunting life and it seems _real_, but he can't feel it. His body is still and so is the air, still and warm and peaceful. There is a quiet behind the din and noise, the screams and shots and roaring flames of this dream, like a sleeping house at dawn.

He remembers he's badly, fatally injured, but even when he reaches out to it, to make sure he's still alive, he can't find the pain anymore.

Then the dream falls away and he's back on the sofa, in muted winter light. It's day.

'If you're planning to make a habit out of this, I'd rather you warned me.' That's the angel's voice, quiet and nondescript like everything else about him.

Dean sits up with a jolt, making himself dizzy for an agonizing few moments where he can't bring his vision to focus. Gradually, however, the room's shapes become steadier and clearer, and the colours settle.

The angel is standing by the window opposite Dean, watching him.

Reflexively, Dean looks about himself. There's a pool of congealed blood on the floor, but no sign of the leviathan.

'I took him back downstairs,' the angel says, as though he's reading Dean's thoughts. 'He should be tied up safe this time.' He lets a few moments pass, then he adds, 'I can injure them, perhaps I could kill them. I thought it better not to try just yet.'

Dean is barely listening. His eyes are burning and gritty as if they've dried out, and his muscles are sore. He feels weak, and hates it.

The details of the night are just coming back to him in full. It turns his stomach.

'Dean?'

This is the most fucked-up déjà-vu. His shirt sticks to his skin, black although it's really green, and stiff. _Sam and Bobby._

'What?'

'Sam and Bobby.'

'They're fine. He knocked them out, with something other than blunt force, too, apparently. But I'm sure they'll wake within the hour.' The angel pauses. 'Are you alright?'

'He looked like Cas.' It's not a reply, it's not even meant for the angel's ears. Who hears it anyway, of course, and freezes. But Dean doesn't see that, because he's staring straight ahead, at nothing.

He runs a hand over his face, willing the faint trembling in his fingers, his arm, to subside. 'Dammit,' he mutters, and then he laughs without humour, giddy with what might be blood loss, and possibly some kind of shock. 'Damn right I was stupid.' He glances over to the kitchen counter, foolishly. 'Guess I really did want to believe he was alive.'

He feels awful just then. Because he never realized how precariously he was holding it together, how deep the cracks were, how fucked up everything was, until now. Until he forgot just about everything he ever learned because the monster that was staring him in the face looked like the friend he lost. The kind of mistake no hunter should ever make.

Enough of them do, sure. But not Dean, not until now.

With an effort, he collects himself somewhat and turns his head towards the angel. Who hasn't taken his eyes off him, studying him intently. He looks uncertain, troubled. Then he suddenly shakes his head and looks away.

'I told you it wasn't a good idea for him to see me.'

Dean frowns. 'What?'

The angel sighs. Now he just looks tired, somehow defeated. 'I'm sorry, Dean.' He says it exactly like Cas.

After last night, that sends a shiver down Dean's spine.

'For what?' he asks, trying to somehow push away the sense of dread that clings to him like a wisps of mist. 'I think you just saved my life. Again. As guardian angels go, you're actually not too bad.'

The angel is chewing on his bottom lip, looking lost in thought, as if he isn't listening at all.

It's the most human thing Dean has ever seen him do.

'He recognized me. They all would, it doesn't matter what I look like. He must have seen something when we were all down there together, something … I don't know. They're horrible creatures. But whatever he had planned, it almost worked.'

Dean stares at him, mind curiously blank. He feels like he's missing something, something important. 'What are you talking about?' And then something clicks, his mind finally catching up. And instantly starting to struggle against this.

'What the hell are you telling me?' He finds it hard to keep his voice under control.

'I'm sorry, Dean,' the angel repeats. Sounding like Cas, exactly like Cas right before everything fell apart. 'I didn't want to lie to you again. I just didn't think you'd even let me get close enough to protect you if you knew it was me.' His lips curve a little, and he adds, 'I taught you too many warding sigils to take that chance.'

Dean blinks, and stares some more. _No no no_, he thinks.

The angel drops his gaze, studying his hands as though they're the key to this whole confusing, muddled mess. 'This is just a vessel,' he says quietly, as if explaining all over again how angels work. As if he's wearing a trenchcoat with shotgun holes and a tear from a demon knife, not a washed-out tee.

'But it's all mine, has been for a while now.' Another pause and a crooked, brittle smile. 'With interruptions.'

Finally, he meets Dean's gaze again, or maybe really meets it for the first time since that day in Idaho. 'But what you see isn't real. I changed it.'

The charade is already over. As if someone wiped some filter away, Dean can already see right through it all. The angel's expressions are Cas's now, his voice is, everything about him is Cas except the colours and lines of his face and body.

'Change back,' Dean says, voice tense and half breathless.

The angel hesitates, as if this stranger's face is some sort of armour he's unwilling to let go. But eventually, he sighs and turns to the window, stepping into the wintry light that shifts around him like it needs to rearrange itself.

Dean gets to his feet, still light-headed, confused, and sick to his stomach with anxiety, apprehension, and something else, something much less oppressing.

The angel turns around again and he looks like Cas.

'I believe it's customary in situations like these,' he says after a few moments, 'to say something like _I was going to tell you_. But in truth I don't know if I was.'

Dean says nothing at all. Everything he can think of he already said, to a leviathan who looked just like this. Exactly like this.

Except for the eyes, perhaps.

Slowly, Cas walks over to where the jar of Borax is still sitting on the table from the day before. He takes it to the sink, unscrewing the cap as he goes, and pours the liquid over his hand.

'I'm not a leviathan,' he says, with an empty smile that acknowledges the irony of that statement. He turns to Dean and throws something towards him, something Dean didn't see him get. It lands on the floor with a bright clatter, a few inches away from his feet. Angel blade.

'You can stab me with that if you like. It'll work.'

Dean doesn't know how it's meant. Stab him to see if he's really an angel, or stab him to kill him because after everything they might both just consider that to be within Dean's right. He isn't sure it really matters which it is.

He stares at Cas for a long time, then he slowly stoops to pick up the sword and approaches the angel. He turns the weapon in his hands, grabbing the blade, and stops, offering the hilt to Cas as though to return it. But the blade is pointing at his abdomen and the distance between them is the length of the sword.

_There, _he thinks,_ I'm taking this chance again. I'm making the same mistake again. If this is the same trick all over, somehow, then go ahead. I don't care. _This is too much. Dean feels like a wreck and he feels half out of his mind. He needs this to be Cas and with the weapon in his hand held out like that, he's willing it to be.

Cas doesn't move for what feels like a very long time, maybe giving Dean time to think it over, to change his mind. But, eventually, he takes the blade and it's vanished before Dean knows what's going on. At that moment, for some reason, Dean knows.

On impulse, he leans in and pulls Cas into an embrace.

ooo

Sam and Bobby still aren't stirring when Dean checks on them, but he's seen enough people out cold to know that Cas is right, and there's nothing seriously wrong with them.

He returns to the main room, where he finds Cas leaning against the creaky contraption that holds Rufus's tv-set-from-primeval-times, in the same place he was when Dean woke up. Part of Dean is surprised he hasn't vanished.

It feels funny walking in here with Cas just standing there. Like nothing happened. Like he wasn't covered in blood and black goo last time they saw each other, and being torn apart from the inside by monsters. Like he didn't kill Eleanor and break Sam's wall and Dean didn't tell Death to kill him and wasn't blindsided by how much all of it _hurt_.

'Thanks,' he says, voice a little wobbly, half because he wants to and half just to be saying _something_, hoping it'll dispel the eeriness of this and that feeling that's somehow lodged in his chest, that has him fighting against some kind of tremor. 'For fixing Sammy, and Bobby. Saving me. Twice.'

Cas smiles, but it has such a perfunctory quality, it's almost shockingly human. 'I said I'd fix what I could. That's all I'm doing.'

Dean nods slowly. Taking a deep breath, he leans on the backrest of the couch and for a minute or two, neither of them speaks. The cabin is still quiet, almost peaceful if you count out the blood that's still staining the floorboards. This small place, and its tranquillity, seem quite disproportionate to the weight of the moment.

Or maybe it's really rather befitting, in fact.

Cas still looks a little bit flustered, and he looks a little bit wary and very serious.

Dean drops his head to hide a smile. Always so very serious.

'It's good to see you Cas,' he says at last.

The angel studies him across the space between them, they're as far apart as the room allows. A little gulf of threadbare rag and disintegrating furniture separating them.

'It's good to see you too, Dean.'

Even though Dean didn't believe, until about fifteen minutes ago, that he'd ever see Cas again, he used to think that if he did, he's have a whole lot to say. Now, however, he doesn't really feel the need to say anything much at all. Somehow, the magnitude of all that's happened seems to make words quite unnecessary. Cas did what he did, and from there everything went spectacularly wrong. A few months later, they're all as safe and sound as they probably ever can be in this world again. What's there to say?

Well, if Dean can't think of anything, Cas obviously can.

'Listen to me, Dean,' he says, speaking every word like it's a building block. 'Please. I am sorry for what I did. I never meant to betray you and I _was_ trying to protect you when I made the deal with Crowley.' He stops briefly, as though to collect himself. 'For what happened later, I have no excuses and I won't try to make any. Half the time I wasn't myself, but that was my own fault. And now, since I've been back –'

'Dude,' Dean interrupts him softly. He's heard Cas say sorry so often for ever part of this, and he used to brush it aside for one reason or another. He doesn't need to hear it all again. The time that's passed was more than enough to think it all through a hundred times, and Dean has run out of anger long ago. 'It's alright,' he says. 'You're forgiven.'

Cas looks like he's caught between relief that Dean _finally_ listened, hope that he meant what he said, and trying to decide whether he did.

Cas was rattled when Dean hugged him. It was probably the last thing he expected. It was the last thing Dean expected, too, but that's a different issue.

The thing is that feeling Cas go all tense and breathless all of a sudden made a few things quite a lot clearer for Dean.

He found himself thinking, _Holy hell, this is fucked up_, because this was an _angel_ after all, all that power and millions of years of memory and the sheer otherworldliness, and somehow all that scope and inconceivability narrowed down to this, a human body shocked at a single, simple gesture.

It made Dean realize what a long, winded and bumpy and fucking terrifying way they've come, and where they are now.

Cas thought Dean hated him, and had to hate him even more now because he'd lied about one more thing. While Dean finally understood that it doesn't matter what Cas did because it was never about his actions (with the one exception, Sam, but by God they've all made mistakes). Dean just made it about that because that's so much easier to deal with than what's really going on. What it really is about, are Cas's silences, and why he kept them. The lies were just the collateral. Dean thinks about how he didn't tell Sam what John had whispered to him in the hospital, and about Amy, and he gets it. In the end, it's as simple as that. He gets it.

'Look, I'm not saying it was good. But crap like that never is. And I believe you. All of it. So we'll work it out, alright?'

Funnily, it's that which finally makes Cas relax somewhat. So it was about trust, not forgiveness. Huh.

It's scary to think that a creature as powerful and old and _inhuman_ as an angel would worry only about you, and not at all, it seems, about himself. It's scary, but that's what all this means, Dean supposed.

'For what it's worth,' he says eventually, with another deep breath, 'I'm sorry too. You were right about one thing, at least. You _did_ deserve our trust. And even if your plan sucked, I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance back there.'

Perhaps that stuns Cas a little, because after all you really don't hear Dean Winchester admit he might have been wrong _somewhere_ on a daily basis. After a few moments, he simply says, 'Thank you.'

'Now for the record, I wish _you'd_ given me a chance too and showed your face right away. 'Cause I really didn't need to believe you were gone for all that time … But what the hell, right?' He gets it. 'Since we're forgivin' and forgettin'.'

At last, Dean abandons his post behind the couch and sits down on it instead. His knees and left wrist ache. He must have fallen on them pretty hard when the leviathan cut him open like he was a freaking chicken.

Cas has patched him back together quite a few times by now. They should start a tally sheet.

He sighs and runs both hands over his face, trying to scrub the tiredness away.

'What happened, Cas? We thought you were dead.'

The angel shakes his head. 'No, just wounded, and out of strength. The leviathans ate up nearly all of my Grace while they were inside of me.'

'_Ate_ it?'

'They seem to be keen on ingesting things, don't they?'

Well, yeah. 'So … what happened?'

Cas gives a shrug, as though he thinks it's not a particularly exciting story.

'Some of my brothers and sisters found me and took me back to heaven. I was given time to heal, until I was strong enough to stand trial for my crimes.'

'So what, is this you punishment?' Dean cuts in, less than half serious.

'You're not that bad,' Cas says, and Dean blinks. _Was that a joke?_

'I was punished,' the angel continues, serious again. 'And I deserved every moment of it, if moments are something you can count that sort of thing in. _This_, however, I'm not sure I deserve, and it certainly isn't part of my punishment.'

Dean frowns a little. 'What did they do to you, man?' He catches the grimace that briefly flashes across Cas's face, but chooses not to pick up on it. Perhaps, some day, he'll ask again. If it's even something that can be expressed through human concepts. For now, he just goes on, 'I mean, if they let you off just like that afterwards…'

'I think it has less to do with 'letting me off' than with using me,' Cas replies. At Dean inquiring look, he explains, 'Apocalypse or no, you and your brother are still the most powerful vessels on this planet, and that means heaven will never entirely lose interest in you, I suppose. They want you protected, especially when you're hunting leviathans. You're … not the easiest charges in the world to handle, and I know you. That helps.'

'Huh, thanks,' Dean mutters, with a certain amount of pride.

Cas is silent for a few moments, looking at nothing in particular, it seems.

'There will be a day when you won't need my help anymore, none of you, because your time in this world will be up. And I think that's the day my grace period will end as well.'

Dean raises his eyebrows. 'You think they'll kill you once we're gone?'

'I'm almost certain, yes.'

That hits Dean a little unexpectedly. Talk about scary.

'Well,' he says after a while, 'we'll see about that, shall we?'

ooo

Of course it's not all over and done with just like that. Sometimes Dean thinks they could spend the rest of their lives talking it all through and staring sentences with _Yeah, but why didn't you _…? or _Did you really think_ …?

But it's only been a couple of days he knows they'll be fine. Heck, they already _are_ pretty much fine.

'You know,' Sam says, startling Dean from his immersion in his current task. 'I guess we kinda always used to act like Cas was only there to help us, right?'

Dean is silent, frowning down at the old tattered book. Someone must have poured a can of coke over it, probably sometime back in the 80s at the very least, and he's been trying to pry the pages apart without disfiguring the print beyond legibility. As he works a knife between the table of contents and the introduction, he mulls over Sam's question.

'I guess,' he admits at last.

'Now that's how it really is. His time is actually limited to how long we need him for.'

Dean huffs a breath out through his nose and shakes his head at the dickheads upstairs. Cas has told them their names by now, but Dean can't be bothered to remember them.

He just knows he'll do something about that presumptuous verdict of theirs, even though he has no idea in hell how to go about _that_ kind of thing. But he needs to try because having someone's life depend on you like that is a whole different level of wrong. He's thought that he'll just carve funky symbols into Cas's ribs himself if that's what it takes.

Because he intends to drag Cas into Ash's heaven-Roadhouse once they're all gone, and drink tequilas with him and Sam and Bobby and Ellen and Jo and Ash and Pam till kingdom come.

That's really not the kind of think his younger brother has in mind right now, thought.

'I've been thinking,' Sam says, 'that maybe it's time we showed him that's really not all there is?'

Dean abandons the book and lifts his head. They've set up camp in the house of one Bobby's old hunter friends for a couple of days. The two older men are downstairs, probably catching up with many cups of black tea laced with generous amount of rum, apparently Fred's favourite beverage, to jog their memories.

Sam and Dean don't begrudge their friend this downtime and have been working quietly up here for the last two or so hours.

Dean picks up a peanut from a bowl that was considerately provided earlier, and cracks the shell between his thumb and index finger, but doesn't open it.

'Yeah,' he says, 'maybe it is.'

ooo

'You said that Dick Roman made one of the leviathans eat itself.'

Bobby nods. 'Wouldn't've thought such a thing was possible.'

'Maybe that's the only thing that can kill them.'

'To eat themselves? Well, that makes things simple. All we gotta do is get them all to eat themselves,' Dean says conversationally.

'No, to be eaten. It says here that the leviathan is indestructible, but it also says that God broke its skull and then fed its flesh to the people of the wilderness.' Cas shows them a page in an ancient-looking book, pages filled with columns of Hebrew script.

'Uh-huh,' Dean mutters. 'Yeah, there it is, why didn't I see that earlier?'

'So do you think it'd work to … chop them up and feed them to … something?' Sam asks their angel, his nose wrinkling slightly.

Cas shrugs. 'Might be.'

'Great,' Bobby groans. 'I'll go look at the sales section for pig farms in Montana then, shall I?'

Cas frowns at him, as if he isn't sure why it should have to be Montana. Eventually, he says, 'Perhaps I can find out a bit more about this.'

He closes the dusty tome on the table and seems about ready leave.

'Hey Cas,' Dean says before the angel disappears in a puff of air. 'When you disappear, you don't go to heaven, do you?'

Cas gives him a curious look. 'No. I'm not entirely welcome there.'

'Where do you go?'

'Nowhere in particular,' the angel shrugs.

'And not very far, I guess,' Bobby remarks. Sam and Dean told him about the younger Winchester's idea, so he knows what this is about.

Cas, however, obviously doesn't, and he looks a little apprehensive. Sometimes he still worries that something will cause his friends to distrust him again.

'Relax, dude,' Dean says in mild exasperation. 'All we're saying is, that means you could just as well stick with us, right?'

The creases on Cas's forehead get even deeper.

'There's really no need to disappear on us all the time,' Dean tells him. 'Just stick around. Let us teach you some human stuff.' He grins, which should probably be disconcerting to Cas, but he has other things on his mind right now.

For a moment, he just keeps frowning, as if he suspects there's some obscure human code hidden in all this that he can't decipher. 'You want me to stay with you permanently?'

'Yeah.'

'Why?' Trust Cas, with his Library-of-Congress level bookish knowledge, to ask the most stupid question, looking like he _really_ doesn't have a clue.

Dean opens his mouth to answer, but Bobby beats him to it.

'We'd like to keep an eye on you. You know, so you don't run off with the king of hell again or something.' Cas gives him a look of alarm, and Bobby shakes his head, starting to grin.

'What d'ya think?' he asks. 'Cause family should stick together, kid, that's why.'

_Fin.  
><em>  
>Reviews are very much welcome! Even more than chocolate, and that's saying something!<p> 


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